Teaching Jamestown & Early Colonial Virginia

It seems like people used to just plop down wherever they wanted and name a place after someone. Jamestown. Georgetown. Williamsburg. Of course, there was always more to it than that, and we can help your students explore that early Colonial vision.

In this guide you will find

activities analyzing key historical documents of the time period.

discussion questions on race, politics, and the economy.

historical resources on Virginia's neighbors to the north, Puritan New England, and on Spanish Colonization.

Welcome to Shmooptown. Enjoy your stay.

What's Inside Shmoop's History Teaching Guides

Shmoop is a labor of love from folks who love to teach. Our teaching guides will help you supplement in-classroom learning with fun, engaging, and relatable learning materials that bring history to life.

Inside each guide you'll find quizzes, activity ideas, discussion questions, and more—all written by experts and designed to save you time. Here are the deets on what you get with your teaching guide:

3-5 Common Core-aligned activities (including quotation, image, and document analysis) to complete in class with your students, with detailed instructions for you and your students.

Discussion and essay questions for all levels of students.

Reading quizzes to be sure students are looking at the material through various lenses.

Resources to help make the topic feel more relevant to your 21st-century students.

A note from Shmoop's teachers to you, telling you what to expect from teaching the topic and how you can overcome the hurdles.

With your purchase, you'll get unlimited access for 12 months. And if you like what you see, you can subscribe to all 200+ Teaching Guides for just $19.84/month.

Instructions for You

Four centuries after she lived and died, Americans remain intrigued by Pocahontas. Her story and her image are still important parts of American folklore; heck, she's now a popular Disney cartoon! In this exercise, your students will analyze several images of Pocahontas and consider her role in American culture.

1. Share these images with your students. An alternative approach might be to ask your students to locate as many images of Pocahontas as they can on the internet.

Instructions for Your Students

In reality, she probably didn't look much like any of those people. Yet these images of Pocahontas pop up all over the place in 21st-century America. So why are Americans still so fascinated with the image of Pocahontas, a Native American woman who lived and died 400 years ago?

See how many images of Pocahontas you can find on the internet and think about why she has become the most identifiable – sort of – figure to emerge from the history of the Jamestown colony.

We Love you and we want to show it!

Lots of students? No problem! We've determined that one of our brilliant sales elves can save you precious moolah on your order. Drop us a line below and we will get in touch with you about your Shmoopy needs in the flashes of flashes.